KRULL: America must find a way to deal with mental health issues

Marion County Sheriff John Layton says it plain. The way we're dealing with mentally ill people in many ways is, at best, short-sighted and, at worst, dangerous. We're talking about the connections between mental health and the explosions of violence. In the weeks since the mass murders at Sandy Hook, much of the national discussion has focused on people who suffer from mental illness.

Layton says there is a connection between the somewhat fractured way we deal with mental illness and crime. He points out that 40 percent of people locked up in the Marion County Jail have to take medication to deal with some form of mental health disorder.

Layton says that most deputies aren't trained to deal with the challenges handling mentally ill prisoners. Layton's deputies not only often do not know how to help mentally ill prisoners, but they can't minimize the damage those prisoners can do to themselves and others.

Layton says that more training for law enforcement personnel would help, but that costs money.

Then he says that putting the mentally ill in jail is little better than warehousing them.

Tolbert-Banks adds that locking up mentally ill people without doing anything to deal with their mental issues doesn't help. The best scenario is that locking them up delays dealing with their problems. The worst case scenario is that jail time adds new stresses that exacerbate their problems. The key, she says, is getting mentally ill people the treatment they need. But that costs money.

Dr. Jeff Kellums, the medical director for the Midtown Mental Health Center in Indianapolis, says that he and other professionals working with the mentally ill labor tirelessly to help patients. He wants everyone to know that medical personnel knock themselves out trying to work with anyone with a mental health issue. But when I ask him if he and those dealing with mental illness have enough money to do what they need to do, Kellums shakes his head. "No, we don't," he says.

Layton says that what we really need is a more sophisticated system one that allows law enforcement and medical personnel to work more closely together. He says that, too often, family members will allow a mentally ill child, spouse or sibling to get pulled into the legal system because they're exhausted, and feel they have no other option. He says that there ought to be ways to get mentally ill people the treatment they need. But that, too, would cost money. That brings Layton to his point.

"I keep hearing about this $2 billion surplus that we're supposed to have," the sheriff says. Much of that surplus, he says, comes from deferring dealing with problems and from refusing to meet continuing challenges.

Like figuring out how to treat the seriously mentally ill in an effective and, dare we say it, sane way.